Reason 7 – Ideas to Try

They Require You to Make Decisions by Consensus

Some key questions to ask yourself and your team.

Basic, really important ones:

1. Is consensus the best way to make this particular decision?

2. Have we REALLY listened to everyone?

3. Even if we don’t agree with the decision, will we actively support it so the team can move forward?

4. What will this active support look like?

Interesting ones:

1. Is anyone on this team using consensus decision making as a weapon? Why might this be occurring?

2. Do we talk about our team differently with people outside our team than we do with those on our team? Is this positive or negative?

3. Overall, is our decision making as a team effective?

Key points of this reason to hate work teams:

1. The RESULT of consensus is that everyone will actively support the decision made.

2. The PROCESS of consensus is really listening for the validity in the points of view of others on the team

3. A signal that consensus is not working is when the passion goes out of the conversations and arguments. When this happens it might be time to consider a different decision making process.

Discussion and comment points for this post:

1. Have you ever been on a team where consensus decision making worked really well? What helped in making it work well?

2. And the opposite! Being on a team where consensus was just a pain in the neck (and elsewhere).

3. What assumptions might be present when we think that consensus is a good way to make decisions?